for your coming, your very hearts should grone out those words, Phil. i. 23. "I delire to be diffolved, and to be with Chrift." The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for of Christ. 2. Having delivered my meffage to the reader in general, I have fomewhat more particularly to fay to you of this place. You are a people that were born under, and bred up with the gofpel: It hath been your fingular privilege, above many towns and parishes in England, to enjoy more than fixty years together an able and fruitful miniftry among you. The dew of heaven lay upon you, as it did upon Gideon's fleece, when the ground was dry in other places about you: you have been richly watered with gofpel-fhowers: you, with Capernaum, have been exalted to heaven in the means of grace. And it must be owned to your praise, that you teftified more refpect to the golpel than many other places have done, and treated Chrift's ambaffadors with more civility, whilft they prophefied in fackcloth, than fome other places did. These things are praife-worthy in you. But all this, and much more than this, amounts not to that which Jesus Christ expects from you, and which in his name I would now perfuade you to: And O that I (the leaft and unworthieft of all the meffengers of Christ to you) might indeed prevail with all that are Christlefs among you, (1.) To anfwer the long-continued calls of God to you, by a thorough and found converfion, that the long-suffering of God may be your falvation, and you may not receive all this grace of God in vain. O that the damned might never be fet a-wondering, to fee a people of your advantages for heaven, finking as much below many of themselves in mifery, as you now are above them in means and mercy. Dear friends, my heart's defire and prayer to God for you is, that you may be faved. O that I knew how to engage this whole town to Jefus Chrift, and make faft the marriage knot betwixt him and you, albeit after that I fhould prefently go to the place of filence, and fee men no more, with the inhabitants of the world. Ah firs! methinks I fee the Lord Jefus laying the merciful hand of a holy violence upon you; methinks he calls to you, as the angel to Lot, faying, "Arife, left 66 ye be confumed; And while helingred, the men laid hold up"on his hand, the Lord being merciful unto him. And they "brought him without the city, and faid, Escape for thy life, "ftay not in all the plain; escape to the mountain, left thou be "confumed." Gen. xix. 15. How often (to allude to this) hath Jefus Chrift in like manner laid hold upon you in the preach ing of the gospel, and will you not flee for refuge to him? Lord, by what arguments fhall they be perfuaded to be happy? What will win them effectually to thy Chrift? They have many of them efcaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour. They are a people that love thine ordinances, they take delight in approaching to God; thou haft beautified many of them with lovely and obliging tempers and dipofitions. Thus far they are come, there they stick; and beyond this no power but thine can move them. O thou, to whofe hand this work is and must be left, put forth thy faving power and reveal thine arm for their falvation: Thou haft glorified thy name in many among them; Lord, glorify it again. 2. My next requeft is, that you will all be perfuaded, whether converted or unconverted, to fet up all the duties of religion in your families, and govern your children and fervants as men that must give an account to God for them in the great day. O that there were not a prayerlefs family in this town! How little will your tables differ from a manger, where beafts feed together, if God be not owned and acknowledged there, in your eating and drinking? And how can you expect bleffings fhould dwell in your tabernacles, if God be not called on there? Say not, you want time for it, or that your neceffities will not allow it; for, had you been more careful of thefe duties, 'tis like you had not been expofed to fuch neceffities: Befides, you can find time to be idle, you can wafte a part of every day vainly; Why could not that time be redeemed for God? Moreover, you will not deny but the fuccefs of all your affairs at home and abroad depends upon the bleffing of God; and if fo, think you it is not the right way, even to temporal profperity, to engage his prefence and bleffing with you, in whofe hand your all is? Say not, your children and fervants are ignorant of God, and therefore you cannot comfortably join with them in those duties; for the neglect of thofe duties is the caufe of their ignorance; and it is not like they will be better, till you use God's means to make them fo.. Besides, prayer is a part of natural worship, and the vilest among men are bound to pray, else the neglect of it were none of their fin. O let not a duty, upon which fo many and great bleffings hang, fall to the ground, upon fuch filly (not to fay wicked) pretences to shift it off. Remember, death will shortly break up all your families, and difband them; and who then think you will have most comfort in beholding their dead? The day of account also haftens, and then, who will have the most comfortable appearing before the just and holy God? Set up, I beseech you, the ancient and comfortable duties of reading the fcriptures, finging of Plalms, and prayer, in all your dwelling places: And do all thefe confcientiously, as men that have to do with God; and try the Lord herewith, if he will not return in a way of mercy to you, and restore even your outward profperity to you again. However, to be fure, far greater encouragements than that, ly before you, to oblige you to your duties. (3.) More especially, I have a few things to fay to you that have attended on the miniftry, or are under my overfight in a more particular manner, and then I have done. And, ift, I cannot but obferve to you the goodness of our God, yea, the riches of his goodness: Who freely gave Jefus Christ out of his own bofom for us, and hath not withheld his Spirit, ordinances and ministers, to reveal and apply him to us. Here's love that wants an epithet to match it! Who engaged my heart upon this tranfcendent fubject in the courfe of my miniftry among you: a fubject which angels study and admire, as well as we. Who fe fignally protected and overshadowed our affembly in those days of trouble, wherein these truths were delivered to you. You then fat down under his fhadow with great delight, and his fruit was fweet to your tafte: His banner over you was love; your bread was then fure, and your waters failed not: Yea, fuch was his peculiar indulgence, and special tenderness to you, that he fuffered no man to do you harm; and it can hardly be imagined any could attempt it that had but known this, and no worse than this, to be your only defign and bufDefs. Who made thefe meditations of Chrift a strong fupport, and fweet relief to mine, now with Chrift, and no lefs to me, under the greatest exercises and trials that ever befel me in this world; preferving me yet (tho' a broken veffel) for fome farther use and fevice to your fouls. Who in the years that are past left not himself without witness among us, bleffing my labours, to the conversion and edification of many; fome of which yet remain with us, but some are fallen afleep. Who hath made many of you that yet remain, a willing and obedient people, who have in fome measure supported the reputation of religion by your stability and integrity in days of abounding iniquity: My joy and my crown; fo ftand ye faft in the Lord. Who after all the days of fears and troubles, through which we have past, hath at last given us and his churches reft; "that we being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might "ferve him without fear in righteousness and holiness (which "doing, this mercy may be extended to us) all the days of 66 our life." In teftimony of a thankful heart for these invaluable mercies, I humbly and cheerfully rear up this pillar of remembrance, infcribing it with EBENEZER, and JEHOVAH-JIREH. 2dly, As I could not but obferve these things to you, fo I have a few things to request of you, in neither of which I can bear a denial; fo deeply Chrift's, your own, and my interest ly in them. (1.) Look to it, my dear friends, that none of you be found Chriftless at your appearance before him. Thofe that continue Chriftless now, will be left fpeechlefs then. God forbid that you that have heard fo much of Christ, and you that have profeffed fo much of Chrift, fhould at last fall into a worfe condition thaa thofe that never heard the name of Chrif. (2.) See that you daily grow more Chrift-like by converfing with him, as you do, in his precious ordinances. Let it be with your fouls, as it is with a piece of cloth, which receives a deeper dye every time it is dipt into a fat. If not, you may not expect the continuance of your mercies much longer to you. (3.) Get thefe great truths well digested both in your heads and hearts, and let the power of them be difplayed in your lives, elfe the pen of the fcribe, and tongue of the preacher, are both in vain. These things, that fo often warm'd your hearts from the pulpit, return now to make a fecond impreffion upon them from the prefs. Hereby you will recover and fix thofe truths which, 'tis like, are in great part already vanisht from you. The next age perhaps will pro duce a race of men of finer difpofitions and a gentler turn, than this age has produced. Arit. Prob. the fouls of men, This is the fruit I promise myself from you; and whatever entertainment it meets with from others in this Chrift-defpifing age, yet two things relieve me; one is, that future times may produce more humble and hungry Chriftians than this glutted age enjoys, to whom it will be welcome: the other is, that duty difcharged, and endeavours used to bring men to Chrift, and build them up in him; wherein he doth and will rejoice, who is a well-wisher to JOHN FLAVEL. |